Tuesday, May 31, 2016

I am sending you today's EIR Daily Alert with a focus on the report contained in the lead editorial -- the extreme threat of war on China coming from Obama and his equally mad Defense Secretary Ash Carter, and the warning from China that Obama may soon translate his intention to counter China into real actions. War is near in Asia, as in Europe -- perhaps this summer -- if emergency measures to stop Obama are not implemented immediately.

Mike Billington

TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2016

Volume 2, Number 200

EIR Daily Alert Service

P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

War with China by Summer? Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun Stresses G7 Split over Russia Sanctions Scientists’ Group Warns of U.S.-China Nuclear War Next Step Impeachment? Call for Revocation of Obama’s Nobel Prize ‘Will Deutsche Bank Be the Next Lehman Brothers?’ African Nations Are Anxious To Be Part of the New Silk Road Japan Accelerates One of World’s Most Ambitious Maglev Projects A Marshall Plan for Africa, but One Worthy of the Name China Is Considering International Cooperation on Lunar Missions Modi Tells Off Dow Jones: There Is No Reason To Change India’s Non-Alignment Policy

EDITORIALWar with China by Summer?

May 30 (EIRNS)—With Congress out of session until next week, and while Americans take time out to commemorate those who died in military service in past wars, some leading American and leading Chinese officials alike fear that war between the two nations is likely by Summer. The more astute know that if this is allowed to happen, it will quickly become a broader, multilateral nuclear exchange which will be, as a LaRouche PAC video put it, “Unsurvivable.”

The most recent big step towards war was computer-nerd Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s long, highly-provocative May 27 commencement address to the U.S. Naval Academy. He told the cadets that he was going to focus his remarks on the Asia-Pacific, because it would define many of their future careers. He singled out the destroyer USS Lassen, which deliberately intruded into Chinese territorial waters last October, and promised that we will “continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.” He accused China of “expansive and unprecedented actions in the South China Sea, pressing excessive maritime claims contrary to international law.... What’s new and unique to this region is the assertion of claims, dredging, land reclamation, and militarization of features by several claimants but overwhelmingly by China.... China’s cyber-actors have violated the spirit of the internet—not to mention the law—to perpetrate large-scale intellectual property theft from American companies.

“Instead of working toward what [China called] ‘win-win cooperation’ that Beijing publicly says it wants, China sometimes plays by its own rules, undercutting those principles. A model like that is out of step with where the region wants to go, and it’s counterproductive—it’s far from a ‘win-win.’ The result is that China’s actions could erect a Great Wall of self-isolation, as countries across the region—allies, partners and the unaligned—are voicing concerns publicly and privately, at the highest levels, in regional meetings, and global fora.”

Carter went on to threaten China with superior U.S. weapons systems: the F-35 (which doesn’t work), the P-8, “cutting-edge stealth destroyers,” and numerous others. “DOD maintains world-leading capabilities because we have made incomparable investments over decades.... It will take decades more for anyone to build the kind of military capability the United States possesses today. This strength is not simply about dollar figures—it’s also about harnessing those dollars to a tremendous innovative and technological culture that only the United States has, and doing so to develop revolutionary technologies.”

A Hitler-style threatening rant, threatening war, and with about the truth-content of one of Hitler’s tirades.

The Chinese have responded. Global Times, a newspaper owned by the Communist Party of China’s People’s Daily, published an unsigned editorial today which said, “U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter Friday issued another sharp rebuke of China’s actions in the South China Sea by warning Beijing that it is on a path to build a ‘great wall of self-isolation.’ He said the Pentagon’s best weapons, including stealthy F-35 fighters, P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and the newest surface warfare ships, will be deployed to the Pacific theater...

“The nature of Sino-U.S. relations will to a large extent determine the state of international relations in the 21st Century. By pointing the finger at China with a bluffing posture, senior U.S. officials are eroding the foundation of peace in the Asia-Pacific. On the contrary, China has been stressing resolving disputes peacefully. Maintaining peace in the South China Sea is the common wish of all regional stakeholders...

“Carter’s words have been the most threatening China has heard since the end of the Cold War. They confirm some Chinese people’s worries about the worst-case scenario in the Sino-U.S. relationship, in which Washington may translate its intention to counter China into real actions. The Pentagon may be willing to see confrontation between China and the U.S. But the U.S. cannot overawe China by wielding a military stick. The People’s Liberation Army can offset the U.S. advantage of equipment in the South China Sea with its size and proximity, and we are confident about countering the threat from the U.S. Although a military contention will be harmful to China, we cannot retreat in the face of U.S. coercion. China must accelerate its pace to build modern defense capabilities. It should let the U.S. know that if it launches military attacks targeting China in the South China Sea, the U.S. will suffer unbearable consequences. China must enhance its ability to deter the U.S. and increase the U.S.’ strategic risks of military threat against China.” [emphasis added]

May 29 (EIRNS)—Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun daily reports on May 27 that the G7 is splitting over whether to end sanctions against Russia, with Japan and France indicating through their statements and actions, that they may be prepared to end sanctions. Some of this information has been reported before, but its significance is that a high-level Japanese institution such as Mainichi gives voice to this shift, as Japan recently has made steps to commit itself to a Eurasian development alliance with China and Russia. The article appears within weeks of the powerful meeting of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia.

What follows is from a Google translation of the article, with minor adjustments for clarity:

“In the closing days of the seven major countries’ (G7) summit,” Mainichi writes, “the temperature difference between the G7 became highlighted. While President Putin and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and French President Hollande explore the improvement of ... Russian relations,” the British support the United States’ ”tough posture.” It continues, “In the discussion about Russia, opinion was split.... According to Japanese government officials, ‘Russia’s constructive engagement is important.’ The opinion is that we should cooperate with Russia, such as in the Syrian peace process.”

Mainichi observes that, “British Prime Minister Cameron denied the improved relations [with Russia], and said that ‘in Ukraine, we should not forget the victims of Russian aggression.’ ”

In a conclusion that will trigger tremors of rage in London, Mainichi states, “Both Abe and Hollande said that they plan to invite Mr. Putin to visit before the end of the year. There is a possibility that would deepen the gulf with the United States and Britain.”Scientists’ Group Warns of U.S.-China Nuclear War

May 29 (EIRNS)—On May 23, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report warning that “the governments of the United States and the People’s Republic of China are a few poor decisions away from starting a war that could escalate rapidly and end in a nuclear exchange.” It concludes, says the UCS summary of the report, that neither side is likely to prevail by embarking on an arms race reminiscent of the Cold War. “Lack of mutual trust and a growing sense that their differences may be irreconcilable are pushing both governments to look for military solutions,” said report author, Gregory Kulacki, China Project manager for the UCS Global Security Program. “But there is no military solution to the security dilemma facing the two countries.” U.S.-China disputes over the South China Sea and closer military cooperation between the U.S. and Japan are cited as two factors in growing U.S.-China tensions with each side pursuing military responses to the actions of the other. “As long as both sides remain committed to pursuing technical solutions to the problems that divide them,” said Kulacki, “they are condemned to continue competing indefinitely.” According to the report, miscommunication, misunderstanding, and poor judgment in the fog of a rapidly escalating conventional conflict could precipitate an intentional or accidental use of nuclear weapons by either side.

The report calls on both governments to acknowledge the growing risk of conflict and invest more time in seeking diplomatic solutions to the problems between them, in contrast to the current military dialogue which is focused on managing the conflict rather than addressing the underlying causes. “The result is a stalemate that is not a stable outcome; rather, it is a perpetual high-wire act,” said Kulacki, who has been following the bilateral dialogue on nuclear weapons policy for many years. “And that stalemate may not be enough to prevent the unthinkable—a nuclear exchange.” Given the nature of the current regime in Washington, there probably is nothing the Chinese can do to forestall a conflict, but this is not said in the UCS summary. The best chance for avoiding the war that the UCS warns of, is the immediate removal of President Obama from office by Constitutional means.U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMICNext Step Impeachment? Call for Revocation of Obama’s Nobel Prize

May 30 (EIRNS)—As of May 6, Obama has now been at war longer than Bush; and longer than any other American President. In noting this milestone, the New York Times of May 15 called it his “unexpected legacy,” but otherwise made excuses for the imperial viceroy. On May 20, civil libertarians Nat and Nick Hentoff went a step further on the Cato Institute website, and called for revoking Obama’s Nobel Prize, which he received nine months into his reign.

Never before had the Nobel Prize been awarded for “expectations,” they note, expectations which never materialized, as the drone became Obama’s favorite means of execution. Author Jeremy Scahill’s new book, The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program, documents the extent to which the drone strike program has institutionalized the practice of extrajudicial killings. Speaking on Democracy Now!, radio program on May 3, Scahill explained the unconstitutional nature of the program. “Obama has codified assassination as a central official component of American foreign policy. This is a global assassination program that is authorized and run under what amounts to a parallel legal system ... where the President and his advisors serve as the judge, jury, and executioner of people across the globe.”

Revealed in the book are details about Operation Haymaker, “a drone strike program operating in northeastern Afghanistan,” in which, according to government documents, 90% of the victims in a five-month period, “were not the intended targets.” Obama “has [now] taken military action in a total of seven countries—Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen—without the authorization of Congress,” wrote the Times, and that doesn’t count the secret missions. Those were documented by Nick Turse, in a January 2015 edition of The Nation: “During the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2014, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) deployed to 133 countries—roughly 70% of the nations on the planet—according to Army Lt. Col. Robert Bockholt, a public affairs officer with U.S. Special Operations Command.” In an April article, Turse noted, “in 2014, the United States carried out 674 military activities across Africa, nearly two missions per day, an almost 300% jump in the number of annual operations, exercises, and military-to-military training activities since U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) was established in 2008.”

“Awarding a Nobel Peace Prize on the basis of expectations was unprecedented,” argue the Hentoffs. “But after eight years of continuous warfare, the Nobel Committee should take another unprecedented action: It should revoke Obama’s peace prize and demand repayment of the prize money.”COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM‘Will Deutsche Bank Be the Next Lehman Brothers?’

May 29 (EIRNS)—On May 24, Michael Snyder writing for Seeking Alpha financial investment research platform raised in its headline the question, “May 2016: Will Deutsche Bank Survive This Wave of Trouble or Will It Be the Next Lehman Brothers?” Deutsche Bank is a €1.69 trillion ($1.81 trillion) in assets bank, that has a derivatives exposure of between $55-$70 trillion (the officially released figure is constantly changed), an amount that is more than 12 times the GDP of Germany.

On May 23, Moody’s rating service took the step of downgrading Deutsche Bank. In most cases, Deutsche’s debt is now just two grades above junk.

On the same day, Deutsche Bank was compelled to report a €450 million ($500 million) charge that it took in 2015 for equity trading fraud (without disclosing further details; part of Deutsche Bank’s €6.8 billion/$7.7 billion loss for 2015). On top of this, Fortune reported May 23 that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the bank regarding the false pricing and reporting of mortgage-backed securities.

Deutsche Bank reflects the fact that the entire trans-Atlantic financial system is systemically bankrupt. It must be cancelled and replaced by a new system vectored on Hamiltonian-directed credit.

The danger for Deutsche Bank is that it has used so many frauds, that one cannot support the others, and any incident can cause its worthless derivatives contracts to unfold.THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDERAfrican Nations Are Anxious To Be Part of the New Silk Road

May 30 (EIRNS)—“African Countries Bid for ‘Anchor Points’ in China’s Billion-Dollar Silk Road Plan—It Could Set Off ‘Mini Battles,’ ” is the headline on an article in the May 29 Mail & Guardian Africa.

The lead is the current state visit of Togo President Faure Gnassingbé to Beijing, where he was interviewed by Xinhua. With him is a 30-man business delegation. “Togo intends to be the anchor point in West Africa for the New Silk Road initiative,” he said. It “posses[es] many advantages to serve as a gateway, including its geography.” China has been building infrastructure in Togo over the past decade, the article reports, including roads and rail and ports. Gnassingbé said that he wants to strengthen the bilateral relationship. Recently the government stated support for China’s claims in the South China Sea.

Other African countries are also interested. In December, at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Johannesburg, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI said, “Given its geographical location, the Kingdom of Morocco could play a constructive role in extending the Maritime Silk Road, not only to ‘Atlantic Europe,’ but also and especially to West African nations, with whom my country has multi-dimensional ties.”

Recently, Cameroon President Paul Biya described his nation as the strategic crossroads between West and Central Africa, with potential Maritime Silk Road participation. Cameroon’s new Kribi deepwater port is being built by China, and there are at least five ports on the western African coast that are considered strategic in the Belt and Road plan, in Tunisia, Senegal, Gabon, and Ghana, among others.Japan Accelerates One of World’s Most Ambitious Maglev Projects

May 29 (EIRNS)—Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to announce a fiscal stimulus package of as much as ¥10 trillion ($90.7 billion), which includes the acceleration of its timetable to build a maglev line that will connect Tokyo to Nagoya, and eventually proceed to Osaka, reported Bloomberg, citing Nikkei newspaper May 27. This plan emerged in the context of Abe trying to introduce reality in the form of warning “of the risk of a global economic crisis” in the final communiqué by the G7 heads of state and government meeting May 26-27 in Ise, Japan, but Obama and Cameron blocked him.

This proposed maglev line is one of the most ambitious of any such plans. The Central Japan Railway Company began full-fledged construction work on Dec. 18, 2015, starting the digging of a 25 km tunnel that will run below the Hida, the Kiso and the Akaishi Mountains. This line will travel 286 km from Tokyo to Nagoya, and 86% of it will be underground.

On Dec. 20, 2015 Construction Week Online reported,

“Notably sections of the tunnel will lie under 1,400 meters of mountains, the longest such distance for any railway tunnel in Japan, and the work will face high overbearing pressure and the risk of high-pressure underground water due to the complicated stratum in the central part of the Japanese archipelago.

“ ‘It’s inevitable that workers will fight against high-pressure spring water. The project will involve the most difficult construction in the history of Japanese mountain tunnels,’ said Atsushi Koizumi, a professor of tunnel engineering at Waseda University.”

The tunneling work, and laying of the route, which together require a leap in engineering capability, will take ten years. The maglev line is projected to start operations in 2027, and will connect Tokyo to Nagoya in 40 minutes. That route would then be extended to Osaka, which had an original completion date of 2045, but now the Abe government is saying it will take 8 years off that timetable. The maglev from Tokyo to Osaka, a distance of 503 km, will take 67 minutes.

The maglev will “fly” on a magnetic cushion on this route at maximum cruising speeds of 505 km/h (308 mph), However, the Central Japan Railway Company is pushing the limit. On April 21, 2015, its test run, carrying 49 employees, achieved a top speed of 603 km/h (373 mph).A Marshall Plan for Africa, but One Worthy of the Name

May 30 (EIRNS)—“Saving Europe Means Saving Africa,” Austrian Member of the European Parliament Heinz K. Becker said when presenting ideas about a Marshall Plan for Africa in Brussels, last week. “We are faced with a major migration wave from Africa to Europe,” he said, stressing that with the same methods used in 2015 to manage the refugee influx, Europe will be no better able to handle an influx of the same dimension again this year.

Humanitarian measures alone will not suffice, Becker warned. What is required is the “creation of a win-win situation for Europe and Africa.... Europe must help in eliminating the causes for refugees [fleeing] in Africa, and furthermore, to create historic progress for those regions which are suffering from a very bad situation.”

Dieter Stiefel, emeritus of the Institute for the History of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Vienna, who has worked with Becker, said that what is really needed is a large-scale approach, the original U.S. Marshall Plan being a model insofar as the Americans “then ended all the smaller aid programs and replaced it by a big one. This must also be done here; it would have to be a very engaged, generous project ... in the range of at least €100 billion up to €700 billion.”SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTUREChina Is Considering International Cooperation on Lunar Missions

May 29 (EIRNS)—As it prepares for next year’s Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission, followed by the Chang’e-4 landing on the far side of the Moon, the leaders of China’s space program say they are considering international collaboration on future Moon missions. “A study is being conducted to justify the importance of lunar exploration,” said China’s first astronaut Yang Liwei, and deputy chief of China’s National Space Administration, on May 25. “We are considering working together with other countries, in this sphere,” he stated. Russia and the European Space Agency are already discussing collaboration on lunar missions, and bilateral talks with China are expected.

Speaking in the Russian space city of Korolyov, which hosted a three-day conference on manned space exploration, Yang indicated that the plan is to send astronauts to the Moon by 2036. This was confirmed by Lt. Gen. Zhang Yulin, deputy commander of the China Manned Space Program, who told China Daily that it will take the country 15 to 20 years to prepare for a manned mission.

However, it would seem that with international collaboration, and even without it, China would be fully capable of moving up that timetable.OTHERModi Tells Off Dow Jones: There Is No Reason To Change India’s Non-Alignment Policy

May 29 (EIRNS)—Prior to his visit to the United States next month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave an interview with the Wall Street Journal posted May 26, saying, “there is no reason to change India’s non-alignment policy that is a legacy and has been in place. But this is true that today, unlike before, India is not standing in a corner. It is the world’s largest democracy and fastest growing economy. We are acutely conscious of our responsibilities both in the region and internationally.”

Modi will make a two-day visit (June 7-8) to the U.S. during which he will address a Joint Session of Congress and hold talks with President Barack Obama.

Modi spoke of his economic policies in depth. He said: “I have an enormous task ahead for myself and a dream for my country. Currently, the relationship between the federal government and the states essentially works as a cooperative federalism. What I am trying to do is to create a concept of competitive cooperative federalism so that there is some competition among the state governments in so far as their economic growth is concerned.

“What I also want is to structure the country’s economy around the three pillars: one third each of agriculture, manufacturing and services, which I think is important for balanced and sustainable growth of the country’s economy. A major priority for me is, of course, the youth. The youth, in fact, matters a lot to me because around 800 million of India’s population is below 35 years of age and to create a skill set for that youth population, to create job opportunities for them, is a priority and a focus area for my government.”

On foreign policy, he emphasized the importance of good neighborly relations. India-Pakistan ties can “truly scale great heights” if Pakistan curbs terrorism. “Pakistan’s failure to take effective action in punishing the perpetrators of terror attacks limits the forward progress in our ties,” he said.

By contrast, he noted India’s border issues with China have remained although unsolved but stable, while its bilateral relations with China is in an upswing, despite general impressions conveyed across the world, including by interviewer Gerard Baker, the Journal’s Editor in Chief “We don’t have any fighting with China today. We have a boundary dispute, but there is no tension or clashes. People-to-people contacts have increased. Trade has increased. Chinese investment in India has gone up. India’s investment in China has grown. So the general impression that exists, that’s not the reality,” Modi said, when Baker pushed for a U.S.-India “grouping” that can “stand up to China.”

Global Research Editor’s NoteThis article was first published by The Huffington Post. The author of the article is distinguished film producer Frank Huguenardhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-to-be-indicted-on-federal-racketeering_us_574af94be4b0009f3d848d20Since its posting on the Huffington Post, the article has been removed. The above link leads to an error message.The text below is the original post, which appears on Frank Huguenard’s Facebook page.https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=frank%20huguenard.This is an important article, please forward.(M. Ch. GR Ed.).* * *The
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is a United
States Federal Law passed in 1970 that was designed to provide a tool
for law enforcement agencies to fight organized crime. RICO allows
prosecution and punishment for alleged racketeering activity that has
been executed as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. Activity considered to be racketeering may include bribery, counterfeiting, money laundering,
embezzlement, illegal gambling, kidnapping, murder, drug trafficking,
slavery, and a host of other nefarious business practices.

James
Comey and The FBI will present a recommendation to Loretta Lynch,
Attorney General of the Department of Justice, that includes a cogent
argument that the Clinton Foundation is an ongoing criminal enterprise
engaged in money laundering and
soliciting bribes in exchange for political, policy and legislative
favors to individuals, corporations and even governments both foreign
and domestic.

FRANK COMEY

“The New York Timesexamined Bill
Clinton’s relationship with a Canadian mining financier, Frank Giustra,
who has donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation and sits
on its board. Clinton, the story suggests, helped Giustra’s company
secure a lucrative uranium-mining deal in Kazakhstan and in return
received “a flow of cash” to the Clinton Foundation, including
previously undisclosed donations from the company’s chairman totaling
$2.35 million.” ( Bloomberg)

Initially,
Comey had indicated that the investigation into Hillary’s home brewed
email server was to be concluded by October of 2015. However, as more
and more evidence in the case has come to light, this initial date kept
being pushed back as the criminal investigation has expanded well beyond
violating State Department regulations to include questions about espionage, perjury and influence peddling.

Here’s
what we do know. Tens of millions of dollars donated to the Clinton
Foundation was funneled to the organization through a Canadian shell
company which has made tracing the donors nearly impossible. Less than
10% of donations to the Foundation has actually been released to
charitable organizations and $2M that has been traced back to long time
Bill Clinton friend Julie McMahon (aka The Energizer).
When the official investigation into Hillary’s email server began, she
instructed her IT professional to delete over 30,000 emails and cloud
backups of her emails older than 30 days at both Platte River Networks and Datto, Inc.
The FBI has subsequently recovered the majority, if not all, of
Hillary’s deleted emails and are putting together a strong case against
her for attempting to cover up her illegal and illicit activities.

A
conviction under RICO comes when the Department of Justice proves that
the defendant has engaged in two or more examples of racketeering and
that the defendant maintained an interest in, participated in or
invested in a criminal enterprise affecting interstate or foreign
commerce. There is ample evidence already in the public record that the
Clinton Foundation qualifies as a criminal enterprise and there’s no
doubt that the FBI is privy to significantly more evidence than has
already been made public.

Under
RICO, the sections most relevant in this case will be section 1503
(obstruction of justice), section 1510 (obstruction of criminal
investigations) and section 1511 (obstruction of State or local law
enforcement). As in the case with Richard Nixon after the Watergate
Break-in, it’s the cover-up of a crime that will be the Clintons’
downfall. Furthermore, under provisions of title 18, United States
Code: Section 201, the Clinton Foundation can be held accountable for
improprieties relating to bribery. The FBI will be able to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt that through the Clinton Foundation, international
entities were able to commit bribery in exchange for help in securing
business deals, such as the uranium-mining deal in Kazakhstan.

It is a Federal Crime to negligently handle classified information under United States Code (USC) 18 section 1924. It is a Federal Class A Felony under USC 18 section 798.
Hillary certified under oath to a federal judge that she had handed
over to the state department all of her emails, which she clearly did
not. In spite of her repeated statements to the effect that everything
that she did with her home brewed email server as Secretary of State was
above-board and approved by the State Department, the Inspector General Report vehemently
refutes this claim. Hillary refused to be interview by the Inspector
General’s office in their investigation, claiming that her upcoming FBI
interview took precedent but it seems more likely that Hillary is more
concerned about committing perjury or admitting to anything that can be
used against her in a court of law.

“Secretary
Clinton should have preserved any Federal records she created and
received on her personal account by printing and filing those records
with the related files in the Office of the Secretary. At a minimum,
Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with
Department business before leaving government service and, because she
did not do so, she did not comply with the Department’s policies that
were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.”

Inspector General Report

Hillary
Clinton is guilty of exposing classified documents to foreign
governments by placing them illegally on her server, of sending and
receiving classified documents and conspiring with her staff to
circumvent the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by avoiding the use of
the State Department run servers. Some of the documents were so highly
classified the the investigators on the case weren’t even able to
examine the material themselves until they got their own clearances
raised to the highest levels.

While
there is an excellent case to be made the Hillary committed treasonous
actions, the strongest case the FBI has is charging both Bill and
Hillary Clinton as well as the Clinton Foundation of Racketeering.
There’s no wonder why it’s taken this long for the FBI to bring forward a
recommendation.

The rabbit hole is so deep on this one that
it has taking dozens of investigators to determine the full extent of
the crimes that have been committed. Perhaps the most interesting
question here is whether or not the FBI’s investigation will be able to
directly link The Clinton Foundation with The Hillary Victory Fund. If
this happens, the DNC itself may be in jeopardy of accusations of either
being an accomplice or of being complicit in racketeering.

May 30, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "SCF " - Not
a day goes by without US Think Tankland doing what it does best;
pushing all sorts of scenarios for cold – and hot – war with Russia,
plus myriad confrontations with China and Iran.

That
fits into the Pentagon’s Top Five existential threats to the US, where
Russia and China sit at the very top and Iran is in fourth place – all
ahead of «terrorism» of the phony Daesh «Caliphate» variety.

Here I
have come up with some concise realpolitik facts to counterpunch the
hysteria – stressing how the Russian hypersonic missile advantage
renders useless the whole construct of NATO’s paranoid rhetoric and
bluster.

The
US Aegis defense system has been transferred from ships to land. The
Patriot missile defense system is worthless. Aegis is about 30% better
than the THAAD system; it may be more effective but their range is also
limited.

Aegis
is not a threat at all to Russia – for now. Yet as the system is
upgraded – and that may take years – it could cause Russia some serious
concern, as Exceptionalistan is increasingly pushing them eastward, so
near to Russia’s borders.

Anyway,
Russia is still light-years ahead in hypersonic missiles. The Pentagon
knows that against the S-500 system, the F-22, the awesomely expensive
F-35 and the B-2 stealth airplanes – stars of a trillion-dollar fighter
program – are totally obsolete.

So
it’s back to the same old meme: «Russian aggression», without which the
Pentagon cannot possibly fight for its divine right to be showered
with unlimited funds.

Washington
had 20,000 planners at work before WWII was ended, focused on the
reconstruction of Germany. Washington had only six after the destruction
of Iraq in 2003’s Shock and Awe.

That
was no incompetence; it was «Plan A» from the get-go. The former USSR
was deemed a mighty threat at the end of WWII – so Germany had to be
rebuilt. Iraq was a war of choice to grab oil fields – mixed with the
implementation of hardcore disaster capitalism. No one in Washington
ever cared or even wanted to rebuild it.

«Russian aggression» does not apply to Iraq; it’s all about Eastern Europe. Russian Foreign Minister SergeyLavrov anyway has made it clear that the deployment of the Aegis will be counterpunched in style – as even US corporate media starts to admit that the Russian economy is healing from the effects of the oil price war.

Take a look at my liquid asssets

Here my
purpose was to show that China is not a House of Cards. Whatever the
real Chinese debt to GDP ratio – figures vary from as low as 23% to 220%
– that is nothing for an economy the size of the Chinese, especially
because it is entirely internally controlled.

China
keeps over $3 trillion in US dollars and other Western currencies in
reserves while it gradually delinks its economy from the real House of
Cards: the US dollar economy.

So
under these circumstances what does foreign debt mean? Not much. China
could – although they don't do it yet – produce more yuan and buy back
their debt, as much as the US with quantitative easing (QE) and the
European Central Bank (ECB) as it asks certain 'favorite countries'
(strong NATO supporters) to produce more than their share of euros.

And
yet Beijing doesn't really need to do this. China, Russia, the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) and what's left of the BRICS (Brazil is
on hold until at least 2018) are slowly but surely forging their own
internal currency and currency transfer system (in China and Russia it
works already internally) to sideline SWIFT and the Bank of
International Settlements (BIS).

When
they are ready to roll it out for the rest of the world to join them,
then US dollar-based foreign debt will be meaningless.

US Think Tankland, as usual, remains clueless. As one of my Chinese sources explains, «whenever
a Western big mouth mentions China's debt ‘problem’ they quote a figure
that seems to come out of thin air, and it includes all debts, central,
provincial, city government levels, estimated all corporate debts,
loans from banks outside China. Meanwhile, they compare this total
number in China with those of Western countries and Japan's central
government debt alone».

The source adds, «China
is operating with a balance sheet of the equivalent to $60 trillion.
Loans from external sources is in the $11 trillion range while cash and
equivalent is in the $3.6-4 trillion range. All this cash – or very
liquid asset – is the biggest discretionary force in the hands of
China's leaders while nothing worth mentioning is in the hands of any
other Western government».

Not
to mention that globally, Beijing is betting on what the World Economic
Forum calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution. China is already the
central hub for global production, supply, logistics and value chain.
Which leads us to One Belt, One Road (OBOR); all roads lead to the
Chinese-driven New Silk Roads, which will connect, deeper and deeper,
China’s economy and infrastructure all across Eurasia. OBOR will
simultaneously expand China’s global power while geopolitically
counterpunching the so far ineffective «pivot to Asia» – Pentagon
provocations in the South China Sea included – and improving China’s
energy security.

Sanctions, like diamonds, are forever

Another major Exceptionalistan fictional narrative is that the US is «worried» about
the inability of European banks to do business in Iran. That’s
nonsense; in fact, it’s the US Treasury Department that is scaring the
hell out of any European bank who dares to do business with Tehran.

India and Iran have struck a $500 million landmark deal to
develop the Iranian port of Chabahar – a key node in what could be
dubbed the New India-Iran Silk Road, connecting India to Central Asia
via Iran and Afghanistan.

Immediately
afterwards the US State Department has the gall to announce that the
deal will be «examined» – as the proverbial Israeli-firster US senators
question whether the deal violates those lingering sanctions against
Iran that refuse to go away. This happens in parallel to a mounting
official narrative of «unrest» contaminating former Soviet republics in
Central Asia – especially Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. CIA-paid hacks
should know those sources of unrest well – as the CIA itself is
fomenting it.

India
doing business with Iran is «suspicious». On the other hand, India is
more than allowed to formalize a historic military cooperation deal with
the US hazily dubbed the «Logistics Support Agreement» (LSA) –
according to which the two militaries may use each other’s land, air and
naval bases for resupplies, repairs and vaguely-defined «operations».

So
it’s all hands on deck all over Exceptionalistan to counter Russia,
China and prevent any real normalization with Iran. These localized
offensives – practical and rhetorical – on all fronts always mean one
thing, and one thing only; splitting and fracturing, by all means
necessary, the OBOR Eurasian integration. Bets can be made that Moscow,
Beijing and Tehran simply won’t be fooled.

In 2014, the world was introduced to Honest Gil, a satirical politician who only tells the truth.

When he first made his
debut, Gil Fulbright (or Phil Gulbright. Or Bill Fulbright. Or Phillip
Mimouf-Wifarts. You’ll understand once you’ve watched the ad below) was
challenging then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his
Democratic rival Alison Lundergan Grimes in what was then the most
expensive Senate election of all time. Now, the satirical politician has returned to campaign for something even higher: President of the United States.

Of course, when Represent.us
first released this ad, it was in September of 2015 as the U.S.
presidential election was just beginning to heat up. Regardless, it’s
still worth watching

Gil begins his
cookie-cutter political commercial promising to be “a president with the
conviction to nod, the courage to point, and the experience to cram
buzzwords into everything I jobs.”

He then assures the populace that he will make education “um…good,” to improve the economy
“by repeating the word jobs,” and “blablabla, something to get votes
from women and minorities.” The dramatic camera angle and bland music
undoubtedly help assure voters that he’s legitimate.

Increasing Tensions Between The United States And China Create Unstable World

By Michael Snyder - End of The America Dream BlogMay 30, 2016
Share this article:

What happens when the two largest economies on the planet start
fighting a trade war with one another? Well, we are about to find out.
As you will see below, the U.S. has gone "nuclear" on China in a trade
dispute over steel, and the Chinese response is likely to be at least as
strong.

Meanwhile, events in the South China Sea have brought
tensions between the Chinese government and the Obama administration to a
boiling point. The Obama administration strongly insists that China
does not have a legal right to those islands, and in China there is now
talk that it may ultimately be necessary to confront the United States
militarily in order keep control of them.

Most
Americans may not realize this, but the relationship between the United
States and China is officially going down the tubes, and this is likely
to have very significant consequences during the years to come.

Let's
start with the trade war that has erupted. About a week ago, we
learned that the Obama administration had decided to "go nuclear" on
China by imposing a 522 percent duty on cold-rolled steel from China
that is used in certain kinds of manufacturing...

In
some regard, China has reason to be angry: the US unleashed what is
nothing short of a nuclear bomb in its rapidly escalating trade war with
China, and recently imposed duties of 522% on cold-rolled steel used in
automobiles and other manufacturing, In doing so it has rendered
Chinese exports to the US unsustainable and will force even more excess
Chinese production to remain landlocked within China's borders, making
the domestic glut, and price collapse, that much worse.

Subsequently, it was announced that a 450 percent duty will be imposed on corrosion-resistant steel from China...

Corrosion-resistant
steel from China will face final U.S. anti-dumping and anti-subsidy
duties of up to 450 percent under the U.S. Commerce Department's latest
clampdown on a glut of steel imports, the agency said on Wednesday.

Needless
to say, the Chinese are less than amused, because these "shock and awe"
trade duties were clearly designed to punish China.

And
of course the truth is that China has been abusing us for years, so
there is definitely a case to be made that they deserve even harsher
treatment. However, we need to keep in mind that the Chinese will
retaliate for this. And when they retaliate, it will likely be quite
painful for us. But for the moment, they are just issuing vague
threats...

China's Commerce Ministry said it
was extremely dissatisfied at what it called the "irrational" move by
the United States, which it said would harm cooperation between the two
countries.

"China will take all necessary steps
to strive for fair treatment and to protect the companies' rights," it
said, without elaborating.

Meanwhile, events in
the South China Sea continue to push the United States and China toward
conflict. Let me summarize a few of the most important things that we
have seen over the past month...

-In early May,
Chinese authorities refused to give permission to the U.S.S. John C.
Stennis battle group to make a routine port call at Hong Kong. The
Chinese had not turned away a U.S. aircraft carrier in almost a decade,
and many believe that this was in direct response to comments that U.S.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter had made regarding China's territorial
claims in the South China Sea.

-Subsequently,
the Obama administration sent the U.S.S. William P. Lawrence sailing
within 12 nautical miles of the disputed islands in the South China Sea.
This was the third time that Obama has sent naval vessels cruising by
those islands, and it provoked an extremely angry response from China.

-Just
last week, two Chinese fighters and a U.S. spy plane nearly collided in
mid-air approximately 50 miles away from Hainan island. This incident
made headlines all over the planet.

Most Americans seem to believe that the Chinese are our "friends", but in China the perspective is completely different.

The
Chinese consider the United States to be their number one long-term
strategic adversary, and they have been working feverishly to prepare
for a future conflict with us.

For example,
China just conducted a successful test of a new hypersonic glide vehicle
that we do not have any defense against. The following comes from the
Washington Free Beacon...

China successfully
flight tested its new high-speed maneuvering warhead last week, days
after Russia carried out its own hypersonic glider test, according to
Pentagon officials.

The test of the
developmental DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle was monitored after launch
Friday atop a ballistic missile fired from the Wuzhai missile launch
center in central China, said officials familiar with reports of the
test.

The maneuvering glider, traveling at
several thousand miles per hour, was tracked by satellites as it flew
west along the edge of the atmosphere to an impact area in the western
part of the country.

In addition, just today there were global headlines
announcing that China is poised to send subs carrying nuclear missiles
into the Pacific for the first time ever...

The
Chinese military is poised to send submarines armed with nuclear
missiles into the Pacific Ocean for the first time, arguing that new US
weapons systems have so undermined Beijing's existing deterrent force
that it has been left with no alternative.

Chinese military officials are not commenting on the timing of a maiden patrol, but insist the move is inevitable.

They
point to plans unveiled in March to station the US Thaad anti-ballistic
system in South Korea, and the development of hypersonic glide missiles
potentially capable of hitting China less than an hour after launch, as
huge threats to the effectiveness of its land-based deterrent force.

Let
us hope that a full-blown shooting war with China does not erupt any
time soon, but the reality is that we are already locked in a conflict
with the Chinese on a number of different levels.

In a recent piece, XKeyscore summarized some of the ways in which China is already seeking to gain the upper hand...

Cyber-kinetic
warfare: The creation and deployment of Stuxnet-type viruses, and
hacking which lead to physical damage of infrastructure such as power
grids, nuclear facilities, hydroelectric and telecommunications systems.

Socio-political
warfare: establishment of "Confucian Centers" in the US and around the
globe, and the funding of US universities in exchange for roles in
university policy-making processes, which often in turn promote
communist ideology.

Territorial: China runs
port operations in many of the worlds largest and most strategically
valuable ports and SLOCs (Sea Lines of Communication). The best example
is the Panama canal. Both ends of the canal are controlled by China.

To
most Americans, our rapidly deteriorating relationship with China is
not much of an issue right now, and very few of our politicians are even
talking about it.

However, I am fully
convinced that this is an extremely ominous development, and that it
will have very, very serious implications for our country during the
years to come.

In the lead up to the Presidential election we’ve seen pockets of
riotous behavior across America. Whether supporting Trump, Sanders,
Hillary or Cruz, average Americans appear to be ready to go to war with
their government or with each other. This sentiment, coupled with
continued economic degradation and a general feeling of a populace that
has for decades been marginalized by the political machine in the United
States, is showing all the signs of serious civil unrest on the
horizon.
In the following interview with Infowars.com special
forces commando Tim Kennedy weighs in, describing the current situation
as a trench having been dug and filled with accelerants just waiting to
be ignited.
Kennedy is a continuity of government expert, which means he’s well
versed in not only how the powder keg of civil unrest could potentially
explode, but what The-Powers-That-Be will do once it does.

For civil unrest to happen you have to have a bunch of
little things that set up for the perfect situation. You have to have a
reason.People are so emotionally involved in this Presidential
election right now… and finally for the first time realizing there is
something wrong with our country… the eyes are open… we know that
something’s not right.
Even though we have a President saying ‘I’m trying to break down borders‘ we’ve never had so much hate between different racial segments… what’s
even more scary is that we know all of these things individually are
setting up the perfect opportunity for serious civil unrest…
Now that we’re moving into summer… we’re moving into the Presidential
election… we’re sending troops into Iraq… we’re looking at groups and
segments of people who are supporting specific Presidential nominees…We have a perfect conducive environment for some serious
problems… you think riots in Missouri were bad? Just wait until July…
wait until August. The trench has been dug and it is full of accelerants… everything is right for things to go very wrong.

Kennedy warns that once civil unrest happens on a nationwide scale,
you’d better have taken steps to prepare, because just as we saw in
Venezuela, Argentina and elsewhere during such tense periods, essential
goods disappear from the shelves almost overnight.
And while such events are often dismissed by Americans as improbable, your concerns over the possibility are not without merit.

As an individual you have to get ready.Don’t care if people think that you’re crazy… don’t think that you’re being a fanatic… that you’re being a prepper.
I’m only responsible for my family… My family is going to have food… My family is going to have water… We are going to be safe.
And if you think I’m crazy because I want to make sure my family is protected, fine, that’s the way it is.
But as an individual you need to look and research about ways to prepare in whatever city you live in.

In short, should widespread civil unrest, whether this summer or at
any point in the future, spread across America and be followed by
military and law enforcement intervention, you absolutely cannot depend
on the government to be there to provide any meaningful assistance.
That means you need to take steps to prepare your own personal continuity plan.
In her best-selling book The Prepper’s Blueprint, Tess Pennington succinctly summarizes the reality of the situation:

Disasters do not discriminate. In the
aftermath of the event, you will be on your own, left to provide for
your family with the supplies and knowledge you have accrued. If you are
prepared with the mental and spiritual foundation to overcome disaster,
then you will transition into survival mode more quickly.
…When you plan for extended disasters you must take into account that
you could be on you own for up to a month or longer. To carry you
through this unpredictable time, you must add additional layers to your
preparedness foundation so that it incorporates essential knowledge and
additional supplies.Excerpted from The Prepper’s Blueprint: The Step-By-Step Guide To Survive Any Disaster

By preparing for the possibility of a widespread civil unrest
scenario you’d also be readying yourself for other potentially deadly
events, thus focusing on core supplies and knowledge is key.

Emergency Food Supplies will
be absolutely critical. Even during a snowstorm or hurricane that are
often forecast well in advance we see panic in grocery stores in the
lead up, often leaving store shelves razed and completely empty.
Stockpiling easy-to-cook, highly nutritious meals will be critical. Such supplies can be acquired in grab-and-go buckets or family packages for multi-day or multi-week emergency scenarios.

Portable food supplies
may come in handy should you be caught in the middle of civil unrest
and riots. These come in the form of high-calorie-food bars that can be
hidden in a backpack, your car, or supplement existing food storage
supplies. At a whopping 3600 calories per bar, five of these are enough for a week’s worth of emergency survival nutrition.

Emergency Water
will be essential in a scenario where city governments are overwhelmed
with rioting or looting. A number of disaster scenarios could lead to
water in an entire city being either too dangerous to drink or simply
turned off at the source. Having a gravity water filter at home
will allow you to stay hydrated during times of crisis. If you’re
caught out in the open, keeping a portable water filtertration system
like the Katadyn Hiker Microfilter or Micropur Water Treatment Tablets in your back pack could be a life saver.

Firearms, Ammunition and Body Armor will be
essential. People will panic. People will become violent. And people are
going to get hurt. Be armed with enough ammunition to keep your family
safe and secure, and know how to use your equipment. But remember, if you have to shoot at a threat, there is a strong possibility they will be shooting back. As such, consider body armor as a means of protection in extremely volatile and potentially violent situations.

First Aid and Trauma Supplies will be essential to
your safety. In a serious emergency there will be no hospitals and you
will need to become the doctor. Collapse doctor Joe Alton has written The Survival Medicine Handbook for just this reason. You’ll want to have a first aid kit, but we also strong encourage you to consider trauma kits for serious injuries. And it’s always a good idea to have antibiotics to prevent infection in the event you can’t get to an emergency room.

Barter and Trade could come into play as well,
especially when store shelves are empty. And while the above supply list
could be used for barter, so too can silver bullion
like coins and bars. Hard currency has been used in Zimbabwe, Argentina
and Greece when either currencies collapsed or banks were closed down
due to emergencies.

The above supply list includes some of the very basics one should
have in their preparedness supplies. For extensive supply lists and
scores of disaster scenarios we encourage you to read Tess Pennington’s
highly acclaimed The Prepper’s Blueprint.
Whether it’s civil unrest this summer or as the result of an economic
collapse in the future, or any number of other disaster scenarios,
having at least a 30 day supply of essential necessities will mean the
difference between life and death. At the very least, they will help
make a very uncomfortable situation a bit more bearable.
As Tim Kennedy has highlighted, the trenches have been dug and the accelerant has been poured.
All we’re waiting for now is the spark.Related:Survive Any Disaster – A Step By Step GuideThe Prepper’s Market – Emergency Preparedness SuppliesFree Web Series: 52 Weeks To PreparednessThe Anatomy Of A Breakdown

We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos (Click for details).

Contributed by Mac Slavo of www.SHTFplan.com.When it hits the fan, don’t say we didn’t warn you. Mac Slavo is the editor of SHTFplan.com,
a resource hub for alternative news, contrarian commentary and
strategies that you can take to protect yourself from the coming global
paradigm shift.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

A world war has begun. Break the silence.

20 March 2016

I have been filming in the Marshall Islands, which lie north of
Australia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I tell people
where I have been, they ask, "Where is that?" If I offer a clue by
referring to "Bikini", they say, "You mean the swimsuit."

Few
seem aware that the bikini swimsuit was named to celebrate the nuclear
explosions that destroyed Bikini island. Sixty-six nuclear devices were
exploded by the United States in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and
1958 -- the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for twelve
years.

Bikini is silent today, mutated and contaminated. Palm
trees grow in a strange grid formation. Nothing moves. There are no
birds. The headstones in the old cemetery are alive with radiation. My
shoes registered "unsafe" on a Geiger counter.

Standing on
the beach, I watched the emerald green of the Pacific fall away into a
vast black hole. This was the crater left by the hydrogen bomb they
called "Bravo". The explosion poisoned people and their environment for
hundreds of miles, perhaps forever.

On my return journey, I
stopped at Honolulu airport and noticed an American magazine called
Women's Health. On the cover was a smiling woman in a bikini swimsuit,
and the headline: "You, too, can have a bikini body." A few days
earlier, in the Marshall Islands, I had interviewed women who had very
different "bikini bodies"; each had suffered thyroid cancer and other
life-threatening cancers.

Unlike the smiling woman in the
magazine, all of them were impoverished: the victims and guinea pigs of a
rapacious superpower that is today more dangerous than ever.

I
relate this experience as a warning and to interrupt a distraction that
has consumed so many of us. The founder of modern propaganda, Edward
Bernays, described this phenomenon as "the conscious and intelligent
manipulation of the habits and opinions" of democratic societies. He
called it an "invisible government".

How many people are aware
that a world war has begun? At present, it is a war of propaganda, of
lies and distraction, but this can change instantaneously with the first
mistaken order, the first missile.

In 2009, President Obama
stood before an adoring crowd in the centre of Prague, in the heart of
Europe. He pledged himself to make "the world free from nuclear
weapons". People cheered and some cried. A torrent of platitudes flowed
from the media. Obama was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

It was all fake. He was lying.

The
Obama administration has built more nuclear weapons, more nuclear
warheads, more nuclear delivery systems, more nuclear factories.
Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any
American president. The cost over thirty years is more than $1 trillion.

A
mini nuclear bomb is planned. It is known as the B61 Model 12. There
has never been anything like it. General James Cartwright, a former Vice
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said, "Going smaller [makes
using this nuclear] weapon more thinkable."

In the last
eighteen months, the greatest build-up of military forces since World
War Two -- led by the United States -- is taking place along Russia's
western frontier. Not since Hitler invaded the Soviet Union have
foreign troops presented such a demonstrable threat to Russia.

Ukraine
- once part of the Soviet Union - has become a CIA theme park. Having
orchestrated a coup in Kiev, Washington effectively controls a regime
that is next door and hostile to Russia: a regime rotten with Nazis,
literally. Prominent parliamentary figures in Ukraine are the political
descendants of the notorious OUN and UPA fascists. They openly praise
Hitler and call for the persecution and expulsion of the Russian
speaking minority.
This is seldom news in the West, or it is inverted to suppress the truth.

In
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia -- next door to Russia - the US military
is deploying combat troops, tanks, heavy weapons. This extreme
provocation of the world's second nuclear power is met with silence in
the West.

What makes the prospect of nuclear war even more dangerous is a parallel campaign against China.

Seldom
a day passes when China is not elevated to the status of a "threat".
According to Admiral Harry Harris, the US Pacific commander, China is
"building a great wall of sand in the South China Sea".

What
he is referring to is China building airstrips in the Spratly Islands,
which are the subject of a dispute with the Philippines - a dispute
without priority until Washington pressured and bribed the government in
Manila and the Pentagon launched a propaganda campaign called "freedom
of navigation".

What does this really mean? It means freedom
for American warships to patrol and dominate the coastal waters of
China. Try to imagine the American reaction if Chinese warships did the
same off the coast of California.

I made a film called The
War You Don't See, in which I interviewed distinguished journalists in
America and Britain: reporters such as Dan Rather of CBS, Rageh Omar of
the BBC, David Rose of the Observer.

All of them said that had
journalists and broadcasters done their job and questioned the
propaganda that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction;
had the lies of George W. Bush and Tony Blair not been amplified and
echoed by journalists, the 2003 invasion of Iraq might not have
happened, and hundreds of thousands of men, women and children would be
alive today.

The propaganda laying the ground for a war
against Russia and/or China is no different in principle. To my
knowledge, no journalist in the Western "mainstream" -- a Dan Rather
equivalent, say --asks why China is building airstrips in the South
China Sea.

The answer ought to be glaringly obvious. The
United States is encircling China with a network of bases, with
ballistic missiles, battle groups, nuclear -armed bombers.

This
lethal arc extends from Australia to the islands of the Pacific, the
Marianas and the Marshalls and Guam, to the Philippines, Thailand,
Okinawa, Korea and across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India. America has
hung a noose around the neck of China. This is not news. Silence by
media; war by media.

In 2015, in high secrecy, the US and
Australia staged the biggest single air-sea military exercise in recent
history, known as Talisman Sabre. Its aim was to rehearse an Air-Sea
Battle Plan, blocking sea lanes, such as the Straits of Malacca and the
Lombok Straits, that cut off China's access to oil, gas and other vital
raw materials from the Middle East and Africa.

In the circus
known as the American presidential campaign, Donald Trump is being
presented as a lunatic, a fascist. He is certainly odious; but he is
also a media hate figure. That alone should arouse our scepticism.

Trump's
views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than those of
David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United
States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama.

According
to one prodigious liberal commentator, Trump is "unleashing the dark
forces of violence" in the United States. Unleashing them?

This
is the country where toddlers shoot their mothers and the police wage a
murderous war against black Americans. This is the country that has
attacked and sought to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them
democracies, and bombed from Asia to the Middle East, causing the deaths
and dispossession of millions of people.

No country can
equal this systemic record of violence. Most of America's wars (almost
all of them against defenceless countries) have been launched not by
Republican presidents but by liberal Democrats: Truman, Kennedy,
Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama.

In 1947, a series of National
Security Council directives described the paramount aim of American
foreign policy as "a world substantially made over in [America's] own
image". The ideology was messianic Americanism. We were all Americans.
Or else. Heretics would be converted, subverted, bribed, smeared or
crushed.

Donald Trump is a symptom of this, but he is also a
maverick. He says the invasion of Iraq was a crime; he doesn't want to
go to war with Russia and China. The danger to the rest of us is not
Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the
resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted "exceptionalism" is
totalitarian with an occasional liberal face.

As presidential
election day draws near, Clinton will be hailed as the first female
president, regardless of her crimes and lies - just as Barack Obama was
lauded as the first black president and liberals swallowed his nonsense
about "hope". And the drool goes on.

Described by the Guardian
columnist Owen Jones as "funny, charming, with a coolness that eludes
practically every other politician", Obama the other day sent drones to
slaughter 150 people in Somalia. He kills people usually on Tuesdays,
according to the New York Times, when he is handed a list of candidates
for death by drone. So cool.

In the 2008 presidential
campaign, Hillary Clinton threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran with
nuclear weapons. As Secretary of State under Obama, she participated in
the overthrow of the democratic government of Honduras. Her
contribution to the destruction of Libya in 2011 was almost gleeful.
When the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, was publicly sodomised with a
knife - a murder made possible by American logistics - Clinton gloated
over his death: "We came, we saw, he died."

One of Clinton's
closest allies is Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of State, who
has attacked young women for not supporting "Hillary". This is the same
Madeleine Albright who infamously celebrated on TV the death of half a
million Iraqi children as "worth it".

Among Clinton's biggest
backers are the Israel lobby and the arms companies that fuel the
violence in the Middle East. She and her husband have received a
fortune from Wall Street. And yet, she is about to be ordained the
women's candidate, to see off the evil Trump, the official demon. Her
supporters include distinguished feminists: the likes of Gloria Steinem
in the US and Anne Summers in Australia.

A generation ago, a
post-modern cult now known as "identity politics" stopped many
intelligent, liberal-minded people examining the causes and individuals
they supported -- such as the fakery of Obama and Clinton; such as
bogus progressive movements like Syriza in Greece, which betrayed the
people of that country and allied with their enemies.

Self
absorption, a kind of "me-ism", became the new zeitgeist in privileged
western societies and signaled the demise of great collective movements
against war, social injustice, inequality, racism and sexism.

Today,
the long sleep may be over. The young are stirring again. Gradually.
The thousands in Britain who supported Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader
are part of this awakening - as are those who rallied to support Senator
Bernie Sanders.

In Britain last week, Jeremy Corbyn's closest
ally, his shadow treasurer John McDonnell, committed a Labour
government to pay off the debts of piratical banks and, in effect, to
continue so-called austerity.

In the US, Bernie Sanders has
promised to support Clinton if or when she's nominated. He, too, has
voted for America's use of violence against countries when he thinks
it's "right". He says Obama has done "a great job".

In
Australia, there is a kind of mortuary politics, in which tedious
parliamentary games are played out in the media while refugees and
Indigenous people are persecuted and inequality grows, along with the
danger of war. The government of Malcolm Turnbull has just announced a
so-called defence budget of $195 billion that is a drive to war. There
was no debate. Silence.

What has happened to the great
tradition of popular direct action, unfettered to parties? Where is the
courage, imagination and commitment required to begin the long journey
to a better, just and peaceful world? Where are the dissidents in art,
film, the theatre, literature?

Where are those who will shatter the silence? Or do we wait until the first nuclear missile is fired?

This
is an edited version of an address by John Pilger at the University of
Sydney, entitled A World War Has Begun. Follow John Pilger on Twitter
@johnpilger

About Me

ROLAND SAN JUAN was a researcher, management consultant, inventor, a part time radio broadcaster and a publishing director. He died last November 25, 2008 after suffering a stroke. His staff will continue his unfinished work to inform the world of the untold truths. Please read Erick San Juan's articles at: ericksanjuan.blogspot.com This blog is dedicated to the late Max Soliven, a FILIPINO PATRIOT.
DISCLAIMER - We do not own or claim any rights to the articles presented in this blog. They are for information and reference only for whatever it's worth. They are copyrighted to their rightful owners.
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